If I could
by jennygiraffadil
Summary: The timeturner is their little secret. Until it's not. It's the only way they have of making sure they're always together  even if they won't admit why.


**Title:** If I could.  
**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius.  
**Disclaimer:** I wish.  
**Summary:** The time-turner is their little secret. Until it's not. It's the only way they have of making sure they're always together - but it has nothing to do with love. They're not in love. Except they really sort of are if they'd ever admit it.   
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It was long past midnight when Sirius folded back the sheets on Remus's bed and quietly slipped inside. James was snoring lightly across the room and Peter had forgotten to close his curtains again - half sprawled over top of his blankets with his hands wrapped around his bare stomach. He'd been watching the way the moon silently tread across the carpet in hours and minutes before fading like static into lines behind their eyes. And Remus was awake. He was sure Remus was awake. He only reached nine and a half in his head befor his feet were swinging over the mattress. He was almost at ten when the thin pencil glow of light slithered from beneath Remus's drapes.

He stopped counting when he joined Remus on the bed, both studying their hands carefully before looking up.

"Are you okay?" Sirius started to ask when Remus bit his lip and he sighed the rest of it out, instead. His hair was jerked up in awkward angles and his eyes were wide and flustered. But perfectly dry. And he didn't expect any less.

Sirius nudged his foot against Remus's and paused as their toes touched between a mound of thin cotton. He wrapped an arm around his knee and rested his head atop when Remus's hands stumbled apart.

"What do you think about Time Travel?" he spluttered out before pushing his lips back together in a firm line. Trying to keep the rest of his thoughts inside. Chewing at the loose skin barely inside his mouth. Sirius just arched a brow elegantly.

"Time Travel?" he asked, "I thought only the Ministry had the power for that?"

His eyes dulled as the fingerprints pushed right up on Remus's wand faded slightly in the dark.

"Well, yes," Remus replied, almost stuttering, almost staying silent. His eyes never met anything past Sirius's shoulder and the faint outline of silhouettes behind him, "Do you think they can do more than they let on? I mean, the time-turners, we all know about them. And the Department of Mysteries and all of that. But do you really think they can only go backwards like they say? Or --"

"You mean, what if they can travel forwards and find out exactly what will come of all this pureblood superiority nonsense?" Sirius interrupted. And they both stilled. The muscles in Sirius's back tensed, shooting arrows up his spine until it clicked, just beneath his neck. And he wrung his hands together before drawing loose circles on his pyjama bottoms.

"If I knew I had the ability to see what was going to happen in the future I don't think I'd trust many other people with it. Even to know it," he added, looking away, "I don't know if I'd trust myself. I mean, if you could see your future self and --"

"Do you think you could?" Remus hissed, low in his throat, but with an odd buzz of excitement burning between the words. His fingers took to twisting his shirt again, weaving it through his hands uncomfortably and Sirius knew he was anxious, nervous, and it made the pit of his stomach ache awkwardly. 

"Do you really think you could see your future self?" Remus continued, "Find out what you'll do, where you'll live, how long you'll survive -- who -- who you'll be with --"

"And everything else --" he rushed out quickly, "But the important stuff."

Sirius nodded slightly even though there wasn't much he really agreed with. If it was possible he didn't think for once second those at the Ministry would use it for personal matters. There would be decrees and laws and prohibitions in so many places they'd be likely to be locked away in cabinets nobody could even touch. But he didn't tell Remus that. He just nodded again and smiled.

"I wouldn't want to know," he said, watching as Remus's hands stopped again, "If you found out what you could be, who you could be, you wouldn't enjoy who you are. Who you love now. You know," he smirked and met Remus's gaze, "_the important stuff_."

The sound of feet shuffling towards them hushed them into heavy breathing and hammering hearts until the bathroom door was flung shut sleepily and relief flushed both of their faces. But they still didn't speak until Peter was back in bed. Snuggled under blankets, with the curtains still flooding openly with moonlight and stars.

"I like now," Sirius whispered when he felt it was safe to do so again, "I like right now. When we don't know anything and we're all just idiots forced together by some uncanny ability to make things fly through the air with terrible latin."

They both laughed under their breaths and the mattress shivered as Sirius pushed his feet under the blankets. Pressing right against Remus's knee. But neither of them mentioned it. And Remus didn't move.

"So if you had a time turner --" Remus murmured, trailing off as he studied the shadows blanking out Sirius's eyes.

"I wouldn't even want to attempt it," he laughed, "Unless it meant, you know, I could prank Sna--" Remus almost glared, "--otty Slytherin Bastards ahead of time. Or something."

And it all felt okay again.

"They only give them to the best students, you know," Remus said all of a sudden, shifting, and tensing and aching in all the wrong places, "the most promising Mcgonagall said."

"Yeah, because they trust them to have more sense," Sirius snorted, tugging at the thick quilt more and pulling it up over his thighs so he was pressed right up against Remus. And he could hear the blood rushing through his ears.

"So -- appreciate the now?" Remus asked again, pressing himself back shyly, tentatively. He didn't know what he was doing. Why he was doing it. But in the dark, he couldn't see the fear shredding into hope; into desire. Into a warm body. And stormy eyes.

Sirius blinked and nodded, fumbling a hand under the blankets as he yawned and grabbing Remus's tightly.

"We'll be okay, you know," he mumbled idly, letting his head rest against Remus's shoulder, "You and me. The future. Something great will probably happen. I don't know."

"I think it already has," Remus replied. 

And they both knew what wasn't being said. What wasn't been shown or whispered or pressed between bodies. They both knew it would still be a secret when Sirius's hands nimbly popped the buttons on Remus's shirt and found it, the secret, the possibiliy, hanging limply above his heart. And they'd both understand. And that it'd still be a secret, but it'd be their secret, when Sirius told him he knew in lips and breath and whispers that reached below the skin. 

And they'd both understand it was safe when Sirius stumbled back to his own cold sheets and lonely pillow before anyone else could even think to ask.

--

When he was thinning and grey, Remus Lupin stood up in front of friends and family alike. Cleared his throat and announced very calmly, "This is all his own fault." before collapsing against the podium in damp eyes and hearts and shaking hands clutching feebly at a secret that had died with Sirius.

--

"You are an idiot," Sirius screamed, his voice echoing off walls, inside and out, "You are an idiot to come back and to nearly kill yourself, all for something stupid I didn't say years ago."

Remus couldn't stop smiling though. His eyes were rimmed in thick red lines and his fingers were buried in dark hair. The kind he hadn't felt for years. The kind he hadn't felt brushing against his cheek since school.

"I don't care!" he cried, his hands pulling tight fists of material towards him, "I don't care," he repeated, pushing his lips hard against Sirius's before he could say another word.

"You're back," he mumbled, whispered, hissed, and chapped skin was hit with the friction of heat and teeth and heart.

"_You're back_."

--

"Sirius?" Harry asked, curled up in a chair by a thick bay window overlooking empty streets and a starless sky. The moon was hanging low and dull. And a fog settled just past the horizon.

"Yes?" Sirius replied, eventually, slow and steady in a voice that was worn and tired and breaking. His hands ached around the edges, ached around the fingers clinging together and the bones that should have been long gone.

Harry seemed to be thinking for a moment. His hair now hanging in a ponytail he hadn't the heart to cut. It seemed too normal. Too back-to-life and he didn't think he was quite ready so soon after it all. After everything. After the thinly veiled scar and dark circles under all their eyes.

"Did you love him?" he stuttered, glancing away, watching the mildew coat the outside of the windowsill in peeling paint.

And Sirius didn't need to ask who he was talking about.

"Yes," he answered, his throat dry and his heart clenching inside his head, "Oh god, yes."

Harry just nodded and a small smile curved at the bottom of his lips.

--

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Remus laughed against the hollow of Sirius's throat. His damp lips pressed where his damp eyes had rested. And they still hadn't let go of one another.

"I think we have to get rid of it," Sirius whispered and they both nodded morosely. The thin chain still hanging around his neck, long past its sell by date. And nobody had a clue.

"Live out our last chance at life together?" Remus offered with a wide grin and a kiss to the temple.

"It's what all past, present and future versions of ourselves would have wanted," Sirius replied. And they grinned. And they smirked.

"No more secrets?" he asked gently as he pushed a palm up under Remus's old shirt. And it was amazing. It was familiar. It was so much the same yet so much better. All of the knots, the muscles, the lines; the scars.

"No more secrets," Remus agreed, smiling, before he paused and bit his lip, "Well, maybe just one."

Sirius's mouth twitched curiously as he felt kisses drop down his jaw.

"I love you too," Remus whispered into his ear.

And all was well.


End file.
